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The Prenda copyright trolls case has been rolling along merrily for ages now. Finally, we've a judgement against Prenda and the various attorneys. A judgement which is most fun. Ken over at Popehat picks out the most interesting pieces.

The basic background is really very simple. They set themselves up as a corporation or two, shells, and then acquired the rights to a few porno movies. Then they monitored bit torrents to see who was downloading those movies to which they owned copyright. At which point they would sue for copyright violation.

Given the expense of defending against such a suit (not to mention the unpleasant publicity) many people just paid up. Large numbers of millions thus flowed into the bank accounts of those running the scheme.

The judge has found that they didn't have anywhere near enough proof to be able to show what they were claiming: that this one named individual had in fact downloaded a copy of that copyright movie. That's quite apart from the shenanigans that went on in this particular court case.

The solution that the judge has come up with is, in the first part, this:

Therefore, the Court awards attorney’s fees and costs in the sum of $40,659.86to Doe: $36,150.00 for Pietz’s attorney’s fees; $1,950.00 for Ranallo’s attorney’s fees; $2,226.26 for Pietz’s costs; and $333.60 for Ranallo’s costs. As a punitive measure, the Court doubles this award, yielding $81,319.72.5 This punitive multiplier is justified by Plaintiffs’ brazen misconduct and relentless fraud. The Principals, AF Holdings, Ingenuity 13, Prenda Law, and Gibbs are liable for this sum jointly and severally, and shall pay this sum within 14 days of this order.

Looking in at this from a slightly different legal system though I have an idea. Here, the paying of the defendants' costs is being looked upon as a punishment, even an extreme measure. Which in the legal system I am used to, that of England and Wales, is the normal procedure. You sue someone, you lose, you pay both sides legal bills. You sue someone, you win, you get your legal fees paid. It is, always, loser pays all the legal bills.

And the idea that occurs to me is that this system wouldn't allow copyright trolls like Prenda to even exist. The risks of a defendant lawyering up and, in the process of demolishing their case, racking up very large legal bills would simply be too much of a disincentive to undertake such actions.

So why is the US near unique in not having a system whereby the loser picks up both sets of legal bills?